Do you watch/read the news?

beks101

So today, a UK study was released which came to the following conclusion: women know less about politics and current affairs than men.

Link:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/02/women-especially-in-canada-are-more-ignorant-of-politics-and-current-affairs-than-men-says-uk-research/

Most poignantly,

“I think it’s because public affairs is indeed dominated by men. It may be that there is also patriarchal bias, but it isn’t possible to determine whether reality is being distorted or whether it is merely being reflected,” he said in an interview.

He suggested three partial explanations. One is a “historical hangover” from an age when public affairs was men’s work, and women stayed home. Another is that women can be more busy than men, with less time for news. A third is that the men seem to be more prominent in current affairs, which can discourage some women from taking an interest or feeling involved.

The study took in a range of countries, and specified Canada as one strong example. So a talking point in Canada today.

I live in Toronto and work as a producer on a national news programme, so I'm probably an atypical case; the news is my livelihood. As a result, a large bulk of my friends are journalists and equally engaged.

However, on reflection, we'd rarely talk about the news, current affairs, global matters. If the subject comes up, we'll wheel out what we know and debate the merits based on our own research, but probably due to news saturation on a day to day basis, it's not a regular subject.

I can recall when I was back in Ireland and things were different though. News wasn't just a bunch of middle aged men in bad suits sitting in a government building; news was personal. It was to do with our jobs, our quality of life, whether or not we'd have to emigrate. It was equally pressing for my male and female friends and we'd engage in heated drunken political debates at 2am about the bailout, the government, the unemployment line, ever-increasing taxes, what's going to happen, what needs to happen, what definitely should not happen.

It's fair to say though, Ireland's circumstances are a little different, a little more "life or death", and my stance, a little more biased than your typical Irish woman.

So I should find an example outside of my sphere. Let's take my little sister, a dentist in training - massively book smart, intellectual and very sociable. But with little knowledge of the things I hear about on a daily basis. Syria is a mystery to her. Mandela will be dead about a week before she hears about it.

So I'm curious about this. Does this study reflect reality among Irish women too? Do you follow the news? Do you read up on it on a daily basis? How far does your knowledge extend - to what's happening in Irish society/economy or further beyond? How important is that knowledge to you?

How familiar are you with what's happening today in Egypt, for example? Have you heard about, or do you care about, the foiled Canadian terrorist plot a few days ago? Or the Snowden search?

And if you're disengaged - what are the reasons for that? What do you tend to talk about with your female friends for the most part?

clairefontaine

Yes. I read and follow the news. I'm not sure if I'm irish though. But even when I lived there I always followed the news and kept up with politics.

I don't vote though.

pharmaton

I grew up in a family that was fairly engaged, whether it was the daily newspapers or the religiously watched news at 1 or 6. My father was quite vocal on a few issues and would often discuss things that were highlighted on any given day with whoever happened to be seated at the table with him. He had an interest in politics on a local level so I suppose it would be no surprise then that the majority of topics would be local or relevant. I grew up in the eighties though and Ireland was a very different place, I'd hazzard a guess that more people were clued into political issues then and of course we were living during the height of the troubles, there would be few who wouldn't remember all that imagery from watching the news daily as kids. We probably wouldn't have been monitoring global affairs quite so much however.

I can only think of one female who I would discuss current affairs with, she happens to lecture in economics so she has to be clued in and she helps to clarify a lot of issue which would otherwise go over my head.
The girls at work might comment on local news, (the radio is always tuned in) specifically things which affect them directly but rarely comment on news further afield. I'd say that's par for the course with every other place I've worked in.
My mother always surprises me with her amount of educated information wrt to specific topics and current affairs but she wouldn't discuss these things unless these issues were brought up and asked outright for her opinion. I found it strange though that when I started work in my current job that my co workers found it unusual that I bought a paper to read during lunch every day. As it is it's still my primary news source.
Don't know if this helps answer some of your questions


(edit-also, had a big discussion about Snowden with my daughter the other day, she wouldn't have much interest but she'll usually be in the same room when I catch the news and every now and again comment on issues. She didn't really have much interest in the story though she's 19)

eviltwin

I'm a news junkie, I'm constantly watching or reading something news related. I've started reading a lot more books based on political events or characters too. I tend to be more interested in Irish issues and those with a social edge but I'm doing my best to learn more about what is going on internationally. None of my friends of either gender care about current affairs, all they care about is who is top of the Premiership or how fat certain celebrities are.

ash23

I watch the news and I read newspapers but I wouldn't say I'm "into" politics etc.
I like to have an idea of what is going on in the world and I'd be able to have some sort of coversation about current affairs, but I wouldn't be able to delve too deep.

I just have so much going on in my head between work, family, friends and relationships....I barely have the energy to devote to that without giving any of my time and energy over to getting worked up over politics.

When I have an opinion on something I tend to be very informed and vocal about it. But very few "causes" get to me now. I used to be much more involved when I was younger. Now I just don't have that same motivation.

kylith

I generally don't follow the news because I find it depressing. I generally get alerted to any big stories by a couple of fora I trust, which then have discussions and links and debate and before you know it I've read up on every side of the story and am completely unable to form an opinion on it.

jaja321

Absolutely - always try and keep on top of what's going on - have always been really interested in politics and current affairs. Used to live in the States so try and keep up with whats happening there too.

Every now and again though I do go through phases of 'switching off' for a few days, because sometimes things can get too depressing.

WildRosie

Definitely. I check various news sites throughout the day. When I was a teenager, my dad would insist that I read at least one article from The Irish Times each evening to help me improve my English writing skills and it really helped. I'm no good at the literature end of things but I can definitely string a few lines together.

It also sparked my interest in current affairs and politics. I have particular areas that would interest me outside of Irish current affairs; UK, US and Middle Eastern politics primarily, but would dip in and out of others. I think it's important to be aware of what's going on around us and in the wider world. Thinking of the people around me, I can see a bit of a pattern. My mom doesn't. My brother has become more interested in the last year or two and listens to Newstalk for hours everyday. My dad is a current affairs junkie, mainly Irish and US. None of my girlfriends, while all highly educated and in good jobs would follow the news.

Irish and European current affairs would have been very important in my last job, you couldn't really have a client ask about the bank guarantee or property crash and not have an opinion when you're offering financial advice! We'd get a list of articles to read each morning by email.

I think it's something that either interests you or not and I wouldn't consider it a necessity for everyone to follow the news, I consider it to be one of my hobbies and we all have different hobbies.

rainbowtrout

Yes I watch the news/read paper/read it online everyday. Even when I'm away I'll log into the Irish Times website etc and see what's going on.

I do notice at work (teacher) that I would see male staff buying the paper, but never women.

beks101

pharmaton wrote: »

I grew up in a family that was fairly engaged, whether it was the daily newspapers or the religiously watched news at 1 or 6.

This seems to be a big factor - how news was or wasn't consumed by your family.

I'd be similar to you in that the Six One was a daily staple, Primetime in the evening and both parents would crash out in the living room and rake through the Irish Times at night.

It's funny though - as a kid I always had the idea that news was "boring", it was serious, over my head, depressing, "adult stuff". I don't think that perception was really shaken until I started college and realized that as a Journalism student reading the paper every day was a necessity.

It brings me back to that idea of irrelevance - it didn't seem to have a place in my life before I was sort of "forced" to engage. Israel may as well have been a different planet. U.S politics seemed like light years away from the life I knew. I feel like that plays a big part in why many people don't bother following it - you feel like it doesn't affect or impact your life in any way.

And on reflection, I think being up to speed and able to discuss current affairs at length has probably brought me closer to my Dad.

He's a distinctly unemotional, stoic, pragmatic man with an exhaustive knowledge of history and current affairs. So when I'm home, I talk to my Mum about people and relationships; I talk to my Dad about what's happening in the news. I used to not have that ability, so in a sense it's one of the gifts that my job has given me.

ash23 wrote: »

I just have so much going on in my head between work, family, friends and relationships....I barely have the energy to devote to that without giving any of my time and energy over to getting worked up over politics.

This seems to be one of the reasons given to explain the study's findings. Women are busier. That makes sense in the context of news consumption being something of a hobby.

I feel like if there's a vested interest there, the likelihood of following the news is higher. Like someone mentioned, giving financial advice is virtually impossible without a good sense of the housing market and banking sector.

For me, I honestly can't say if I'd be as bothered if my job didn't require it. 95% of the time, news is depressing. This week alone: Monday, the death of 19 firefighters in Arizona. Tuesday, follow-up on last week's floods in Alberta - thousands homeless and stranded. Yesterday, Egyptian coup, chaos and violence in Tahrir Square.

You see some crazy sh1t. You talk to people who have been thrown into a state of absolute shock and grief a matter of hours ago. And for the bigger stories - things like the Boston bombings, shelling in Syria and children's bodies sprawled out on the streets - it's hard not to take that stuff home. I can see why people wouldn't want to read it, watch it, hear about it.

I wonder if, as women, our emotional reactions tend to be that bit more acute, and that serves as a deterrent? The prospect of it as "exhausting", as opposed to it just being a matter-of-fact thing?

jaja321 wrote: »

Every now and again though I do go through phases of 'switching off' for a few days, because sometimes things can get too depressing.

+1. I'm heading on holidays to the States in a few weeks and have every intention of laying on a beach drinking cocktails with my data switched off and my head in the clouds for the entire two weeks.

WildRosie wrote: »

. I think it's important to be aware of what's going on around us and in the wider world.

This is my overriding feeling. I think it's important to be familiar with the world around you.

I think following local and international affairs and engaging in news analysis can be a great education, a great way of understanding the human mind that bit better.

What motivates people to do what they do? How did a person or a government or a society get to this point? One sentiment I get again and again in my work is the sense that nothing is ever black and white. Even those darker stories provoke that in me - that Sandy Hook shooter got to that point through some kind of path determined by his background and society. Every story that you read has four or five potential causes and so much room for growth and analysis.

IvyTheTerrible

Definitely. As other posters have mentioned, we always watched the news in our house, usually the nine o clock but often the 6 o clock news as well. My parents got the paper everyday, and lots of newspapers on the weekend. Now, i don't buy any newspapers but I watch the Irish and French news (I always find it interesting, the differences in what's reported and how it's reported between both countries. I'm very interested in current affairs. I always feel "strange" when I'm on holidays and don't have access to news from home.

My OH, on the other hand, HATES watching the news. He tries to avoid it (apart from a bit of politics) because he finds it very depressing. I'm much more informed than he is.

Legs.Eleven

The first website I click on in the morning is The Guardian. I'm usually attracted to the debate and comment-type articles where journalists give their opinion on a given news story as opposed to the actual news stories. I've just read an article entitled, "When states monitored their citizens we used to call them authoritarian. Now we think this is what keeps us safe". This type of article interested me a lot more as it has a human angle to it. I'll probably read most of the articles of it's kind in the paper and then move onto to The Irish Times then the Spanish paper El Pais throughout the day and that'd be how I'd pick up most of my news (along with After Hours ).


I used to read the whole paper from back to front regularly but I had to give that up for my mental sanity. I found it was having a direct impact on my moods almost daily. I found after I read the paper, I'd be angry and despairing and had a feeling of hopelessness by the end of it virtually everyday. I'd say I'm a fairly sensitive person, so I really couldn't take it all with a pinch of salt. I found myself thinking, "What's the point in anything when we have coonts like this running the world". All news in the newspaper is bad news and although I was "filled in" on what was going on, I was an angrier person (and I also tended to bore people with my ranting sometimes).

There was an article in The Guardian there a few months ago about this topic:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli

which is an interesting article to be published in a newspaper of all places!


Comment pieces tend to have a more hopeful/positive angle on a news story and they often tend to suggest a solution of sorts, which has a totally different impact on my brain; I have the feeling that all is not lost and that other people want a different world and that there are solutions. They also assist me in analysing what happened by giving some background information on it and seeing it from someone else's point of view.


I'd be very politically biased in what I read though and although I studied Media in university and was told to read all news to get a more impartial perspective of world events, I simply can't do it as I find myself getting angrier.


It's interesting, I almost never discuss current affairs with female friends here in Spain but I know a few of them have an interest from what they post on Facebook. My best friend here has a huge interest in politics but we never discuss it together. I suppose we're both used to not discussing it with other women, so we don't. With my Irish friends, we used to discuss specific news stories but we wouldn't spend hours discussing current affairs...except the HSE as most of them work in that sector.

Why don't women read the news as much as men? Perhaps because it's presented as facts and figures and dates and names and rarely has a "human" angle to it that usually appeals to women more. I suppose women tend to be more interested in individual stories - a woman's day in Afghanistan and how she is directly impacted by the political system there, for example. I read news and it's hard to empathise with what's going on by the way it's presented hence why I read the comment pieces.

coffee_cake

I do read the news and obviously I have a strong interest in politics and knowing what's going on. I don't sit down with the irish times cover to cover like I used to, though - it's too depressing all right.
I will talk with loads of people, friends, colleagues etc about what's going on in the world, AH does link to stuff that's interesting and I can go read up on it myself. I have subscribed to some news places on twitter, there are interesting political links and news stories on my linkedin groups, there's slashdot... there are other ways to go about these things than depressing yourself, I suppose.

clairefontaine

It just dawned on me that every woman in my family are news junkies. My late grandmother read FOUR newspapers a day, every last page of them and kept them. She hoarded them so she could refer to various articles when she needed to. She also read Vanity Fair regularly. No tv and she died before the Internet took off.m

She gave me a copy of the trilogy MAUS when I was 16 and a history of MI5. So also politically minded in her own way, not so much in partisan politics but the human end of politics and history.

My mother and aunt are also news junkies. Same newspaper pathology too.

vitani

I skim the Metro in the morning, and keep an eye on The Journal throughout the day, but that's really it.

I find that when I pay more attention, I can't distance myself emotionally from different events and I end up either angry or despairing at the world.

I keep enough of an eye on the news to have a general idea of what's going on and if there's a story that catches my eye, I'll actively seek out more information on it.

There's also the fact that I'm quite busy and having a child means sitting down and reading a newspaper cover to cover is practically impossible.

vitani

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

I used to read the whole paper from back to front regularly but I had to give that up for my mental sanity. I found it was having a direct impact on my moods almost daily. I found after I read the paper, I'd be angry and despairing and had a feeling of hopelessness by the end of it virtually everyday. I'd say I'm a fairly sensitive person, so I really couldn't take it all with a pinch of salt. I found myself thinking, "What's the point in anything when we have coonts like this running the world". All news in the newspaper is bad news and although I was "filled in" on what was going on, I was an angrier person (and I also tended to bore people with my ranting sometimes).

I was writing my last post when you posted this. I find it interesting that we both used the exact same words independently of each other.

Legs.Eleven

vitani wrote: »

I was writing my last post when you posted this. I find it interesting that we both used the exact same words independently of each other.

Haha! I thought you were copying me and I was thinking, "Get your own bleedin' words!". :mad:;):)

WildRosie

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

I'd be very politically biased in what I read though and although I studied Media in university and was told to read all news to get a more impartial perspective of world events, I simply can't do it as I find myself getting angrier.

I can strongly relate to this. I personally prefer factual pieces to be factual and opinion pieces to be opinion pieces. I don't like where there is an editorial slant on a supposedly factual piece (The Daily Mail springs to mind here as a particularly bad offender, Irish Independent is guilty of it too). I like The Irish Times and The Guardian style of reporting on news items i.e. here are the facts, you are free to make your own mind up on the matter, the mark of a good broadsheet in my opinion. I dislike irrelevant but titillating nuggets of information thrown in to sway the reader.

When it comes to opinion, I would be biased towards sources of a similar political viewpoint to myself and would be angered by the likes of The Daily Mail or Fox News so generally keep away for the sake of my blood pressure.

Legs.Eleven

WildRosie wrote: »

I can strongly relate to this. I personally prefer factual pieces to be factual and opinion pieces to be opinion pieces. I don't like where there is an editorial slant on a supposedly factual piece (The Daily Mail springs to mind here as a particularly bad offender, Irish Independent is guilty of it too). I like The Irish Times and The Guardian style of reporting on news items i.e. here are the facts, you are free to make your own mind up on the matter, the mark of a good broadsheet in my opinion. I dislike irrelevant but titillating nuggets of information thrown in to sway the reader.

When it comes to opinion, I would be biased towards sources of a similar political viewpoint to myself and would be angered by the likes of The Daily Mail or Fox News so generally keep away for the sake of my blood pressure.

Agreed.

Actually, you just reminded me of something that might back up my theory on why women tend to read/watch less news than men - The Daily Mail has a larger female readership than male perhaps because the news is presented as opinion pieces and not as unbiased news.

WildRosie

Legs.Eleven wrote: »

The Daily Mail has a larger female readership than male perhaps because the news is presented as opinion pieces and not as unbiased news.

That's interesting, I didn't know that. I only know one person who reads the DM. Female doctor in her 30's, no interest in current affairs but checks the DM site 3-4 times a day which would tie in with your theory.

FouxDaFaFa

I love keeping up with the news. My Dad says that I enjoy "being outraged" and that could be partly true but I think it's more that I enjoy knowing what's happening in other places. It's living history. I find how information is distributed fascinating. How inaccurate early reports can be, bias, unreliable witnesses. Who owns the media companies and what influence this might have on their coverage.

I get my news almost exclusively online, which will alarm purists. I've stopped watching the television news because I think it veers towards misery porn and some of the stuff pulled by the Irish media (like filming at funerals) is really trashy.

The only newspaper I read is a free local weekly. I used to read the Irish Times but I find lugging a newspaper around inconvenient when you can find everything you need online.

I use twitter and facebook to keep up with news sites I like, like The Journal, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, thinkprogress.org and I cherry-pick stories which interest me.

I check reddit's world news section everyday and ycombinator's "hacker news" most days (really just tech news).

Then on Youtube, I subscribe to one or two news channels, like The Young Turks. (American-focussed but I like the occasional commentary).

My friends tend not to be as interested in the news, except occasionally in celebrity news.